Why Marxists oppose immigration controls
Core Argument¶
The article argues that Marxist opposition to immigration controls is not a peripheral or contingent position but a settled principle of the revolutionary Marxist tradition, grounded in the strategic necessity of working-class unity across national boundaries. The central thesis is that demands for border controls — even when dressed in left-wing rhetoric about protecting wages and conditions — objectively serve the interests of the capitalist class by dividing the working class along national and racial lines. The article contends that figures like Len McCluskey, Angela Nagle, and Slavoj Žižek, who attempt to justify immigration restrictions through selective quotation of Marx, fundamentally misrepresent the Marxist tradition. The real solution to employers using migrant labour to undercut wages is not state-enforced border controls — which leave the capitalist state in charge of the labour supply — but the international organisation of workers, the extension of trade union membership to all workers regardless of nationality, and the demand for equal pay and conditions for all.
Theoretical Grounding¶
The analysis draws on several interconnected Marxist theoretical traditions. First, it deploys the classical Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of class rule: the argument that "managed migration" under a bourgeois state, even a Labour government, cannot serve working-class interests because the state remains a capitalist state. Second, it draws on Lenin's concept of "jingo-socialism" — the idea that workers in imperialist countries can develop a privileged, aristocratic consciousness that leads them to support restrictions on workers from oppressed nations. Third, the article grounds itself in the resolutions of the Second International (particularly the 1907 Stuttgart Congress) and the Third International, which explicitly rejected immigration controls as "reactionary by nature" and called instead for the full integration of migrant workers into trade unions and the equalisation of wages and conditions. The article also employs Marx's own method of concrete analysis: his treatment of the Irish question is used not to justify restrictions on Irish migration to England, but to demonstrate that Marx's solution was the national independence of Ireland and the unity of English and Irish workers against English capital.
Conjunctural Relevance¶
The article was written in December 2018, at a conjuncture marked by the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum and the rise of anti-immigrant parties across Europe and the United States. It directly engages with the political situation in Britain, where the Labour Party was torn between its pro-migrant manifesto (which had produced its best election result since 1997) and the pressure from trade union leaders like Len McCluskey to adopt a more restrictive position. The article situates this within the broader crisis of capitalism since 2008, arguing that the nostalgia for a period of stable reformism and managed migration is futile because capitalism can no longer afford to maintain wages and conditions regardless of migration levels. It connects the migration question to imperialism directly: US military interventions in the Middle East, the EU's deal with Erdogan to keep refugees in Turkey, and the price of coffee in Central America are all identified as drivers of migration that cannot be addressed without challenging capitalism itself. The article also engages with the specific political figures of the moment — McCluskey, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel — to demonstrate that the "liberal" position on migration is not open borders but more efficient and punitive border enforcement.
Where the Argument Continues¶
The article is itself a contribution to an ongoing debate within the Marxist tradition that the RCI has addressed repeatedly. The argument continues in several directions. First, the question of the relationship between the trade union bureaucracy and the rank-and-file — the article's treatment of the Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes points toward a broader analysis of how workers in struggle can overcome the xenophobia promoted by their own leaders. Second, the article gestures toward but does not fully develop the relationship between migration and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall — the claim that "the crisis is not due to migrants, nor bad ideas ('neoliberalism'), but the limits of capitalism itself" requires further elaboration. Third, the article's treatment of the "myth of the liberal bourgeoisie" connects to broader IDOM analyses of popular frontism and the strategy of class independence. Fourth, the historical material on the Stuttgart Congress of 1907 is drawn from primary sources that deserve fuller treatment — the debates within the Second International on migration, colonialism, and war are a rich field for further study. The article also leaves open the question of how to concretely organise for the international unity of workers in the present period of capitalist decay, when trade unions are weak and the far right is making inroads into the working class.
Connections¶
This article should be read alongside several other texts and interventions. Within the IDOM corpus, it connects to analyses of Brexit, the rise of the far right, and the crisis of reformism. The article explicitly references Mauro Vanetti's Italian-language treatment of the same question, which provides a more detailed analysis of the Italian case. The key historical documents cited — the Stuttgart Congress resolution, Lenin's 1913 article "Capitalism and Workers' Immigration," and the Fourth Congress Theses on the Eastern Question — are essential reading. The article also engages critically with contemporary figures: Angela Nagle's "The Left Case against Open Borders" (American Affairs, 2017), Slavoj Žižek's writing on the Yellow Vests, and David L Wilson's Monthly Review article on Marx and the Irish question. For the broader theoretical tradition, the article draws on Lenin's Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism and his The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, as well as Marx's own writings on Ireland and the First International. The article's treatment of the trade union bureaucracy connects to the broader Marxist analysis of labour aristocracy and opportunism developed by Lenin and Trotsky.
Key Quotes¶
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"The idea that the largely right-wing civil service would come up with a proposal for immigration levels to benefit the labour movement, as opposed to big business, is naive."
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"There's a world of difference between arguing that all workers in Britain should be working under the same pay and conditions, and arguing for a ban or limit on foreign workers. The former serves to unite the working class, the latter to divide it."
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"The whole purpose of giving migrants different rights, whether it's right to remain only under certain conditions or complete illegality, is to bring down wages and conditions, and to create a super-exploited section of the working class."
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"The crisis is not due to migrants, nor bad ideas ('neoliberalism'), but the limits of capitalism itself."
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"Closing the borders, even evicting migrants, does not fundamentally alter this fact. It'd be like attempting to quench your thirst with salt water."
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"We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes." (Lenin, quoted in the article)